1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display device and an electronic apparatus. More specifically, the invention relates to a technique achieving a display of a high contrast and a wide viewing angle in a transflective liquid crystal display device which operates in both reflective and transmissive modes.
2. Description of Related Art
In a transflective liquid crystal display device having both a reflective mode and transmissive mode, it is currently known that such a liquid crystal display device can include a liquid crystal layer sandwiched between an upper substrate and a lower substrate, and a reflective film formed of a metal, such as aluminum, having openings for transmitting light, provided on the internal surface of the lower substrate. The reflective film functions as a transflector. In the reflective mode, ambient light incident on the upper substrate passes through the liquid crystal layer, is reflected by the reflective film on the internal surface of the lower substrate, passes through the liquid crystal layer again, exits from the upper substrate, and then reaches the viewer. On the other hand, in the transmissive mode, light incident on the lower substrate from a backlight passes through the liquid crystal layer via an opening in the reflective film, exits from the upper substrate, and then reaches the viewer. Therefore, with regard to the area where the reflective film is formed, the area where the opening is formed constitutes a transmissive display area, and the rest constitutes a reflective display area.
However, the known transflective liquid crystal device has a problem in that the viewing angle in the transmissive display mode is narrow. This is because optical design freedom is restricted. Since the transflector is provided on the internal surface of the liquid crystal cell in order not to produce parallax, reflective display needs to be performed with only one polarizer provided at the viewer side. In order to solve this problem, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-350853 discloses a novel transflective liquid crystal display device using homeotropically aligned liquid crystal. It has the following three characteristics: (1) a “vertical alignment (VA)” mode is adopted where molecules of liquid crystal with negative dielectric anisotropy are aligned vertically with respect to the substrate, and are then tilted by an applied voltage; (2) a “multi-gap structure” is adopted where the thickness of the liquid crystal layer (cell gap) in the transmissive display area is different from that in the reflective display area; and (3) a “multi-domain alignment structure” is adopted. The transmissive display area is a regular octagon or a circle in shape. A projection is provided in the center of the transmissive display area on the opposite substrate so that the liquid crystal molecules are tilted isotropically in the transmissive display area.